Shhhhhh-
It was an evening drenched in heavy rain.
People who had ventured out lightly dressed, thinking it would be just a passing shower, boarded the long-distance automated carriage with annoyed expressions, their clothes soaked through.
"Ugh. My clothes are completely drenched."
On the western side of the Aether Continent, near the Trimann Lake in the Galeo County, the automated carriages were scarcely used.
Because of this, the quality of the carriages wasn't great, with the seating consisting of a single row of straight-backed chairs along either side of the carriage.
Additionally, outside of the central continent and its massive, highly developed states, the safety in the regions left much to be desired.
Whether this was because the advancements of the central continent had yet to spread to the outer territories, or due to some other reason, remained unclear.
"What did you just say? You bastard!"
Thwack!
Inside the automated carriage, a brawl broke out, and three men ended up being thrown out of the moving vehicle.
Given the carriage's considerable speed, they could have been seriously injured, but no one seemed to care.
— Screw you, bastards!
Judging by their furious yelling, the men who fell off weren't badly hurt.
'How noisy.'
Darek, a mercenary, frowned as he glanced at the source of the commotion. It was a woman with bright red hair and tanned skin, holding onto a bottle of liquor that she refused to let go of.
'These so-called mages and their foolish bravado.'
Mages these days were all the same. Just because they could use a little combat magic, they acted as if they were superior, looking down on other mercenaries.
"Tch."
The mage woman appeared drunk and staggered back to her presumed companions and took a seat. Darek's eyes gleamed as he watched her.
'Oh, what's this?'
Unlike the red-haired woman, her two companions had pale, flawless skin.
Both wore hoods, making it difficult to see their faces. One appeared to be a young boy, likely not even in his twenties, while the other seemed to be a young noblewoman from a prestigious family, her refined air unmistakable.
Thud, thud!
Darek nudged the ribs of his companion, who had been dozing off next to him.
"Huh? What's up?"
Darek put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture and gestured with his eyes toward the three seated across from them.
"Oh-ho..."
The companion's eyes gleamed as well.
Prey.
Judging by their attire, they weren't from an extremely wealthy noble family. But a noble was still a noble. They could kidnap them and demand a ransom, or if the family couldn't pay, they could simply sell them off.
Rumors had been spreading lately about the worsening lawlessness in the Galeo County, causing young nobles to stop traveling altogether. Business had been dull for mercenaries like them. But to come across such a windfall on a long-distance carriage? What luck.
"Ah... tracking magic isn't so easy to use anywhere, I guess..."
"If it were such a convenient skill, there wouldn't be a single one of them left by now..."
Darek strained his ears to catch snippets of the group's quiet conversation. The voices were soft and hard to make out, but it was enough to glean some useful information… such as their ages.
'The boy's a teenager, and the woman is in her twenties.'
Their value as merchandise was clear.
Although he'd need to pull back their hoods to appraise their faces properly, even the lower parts of their faces were enough to suggest they were exceptionally handsome and beautiful.
'The problem is that mage…'
Using magic so openly in a poorly policed area like this suggested one of two things:
1. They were confident in their skills.
2. They were complete rookies who had no idea how easily mages could fall to mercenaries.
'It's probably the latter.'
It wasn't a certainty, but Darek believed the odds were high. The red-haired mage appeared to be in her mid-to-late twenties at most, suggesting she didn't have much real-world experience.
She likely had no idea how mercenaries with ill intent could easily take down a mage.
No elaborate plan was needed. There were 17 people aboard the carriage, and 14 of them were Darek's allies.
With just a few exchanged glances, they had already synchronized on when to act.
Vrrrmmmm...!
The gauntlet on Darek's right hand emitted a strange, resonant hum.
Clatter!
As the carriage bounced over a rough patch of terrain, causing its passengers to shift slightly, Darek made his move.
Crash!!!
Darek lunged forward, thrusting his right arm out and grabbing the red-haired woman by the collar, yanking her through the side of the carriage.
Thud!
The woman was now pinned against the wall of the carriage and struggled as she kicked and beat against the gauntlet gripping her neck, but it was futile.
"Do you get it now? This is an item."
Darek smirked and tightened his grip on her throat.
"With things like this, even low-ranking mages like you are no match for us mercenaries. That's the world now."
In the past, assassinating mages was already something mercenaries occasionally pulled off. Mages tended to let their guard down at night, often neglecting to maintain their shields.
But with the advent of items like this, even in broad daylight, when mages had basic shields on their skin, ambushing them became possible.
High-end items could even neutralize Class 3 mages. And as proof, look at this:
This red-haired woman, who had been so full of confidence just moments ago, now had her shield shattered effortlessly.
"Look at you… getting caught by mere mercenaries. That expression says it all, doesn't it?"
"Heh... But your face is decent enough, so I'll take you along. You should be thankful. If you were ugly, I would've just snapped your neck and been done with it."
After taking down the guard, Darek was certain his comrades had already subdued the young boy and the noblewoman. It wasn't something he even needed to think about… such an outcome was obvious.
It was as natural as water flowing downhill, requiring no doubt or consideration.
Confident in this, Darek lifted the red-haired woman by her collar and turned to his comrades, shaking her like a trophy to flaunt his success.
"Ha, did you see that, guys? This is—"
But then...
"See what, exactly?"
Something was off.
"Urgh...!"
"Guhh..."
As Darek slowly processed what he was seeing, the situation became clear.
First, the side of the carriage.
It was completely wrecked, with the roof ripped off as well.
'Was that my doing?'
No.
Even with the power of his item, the best he could do was punch a hole in part of the carriage. He didn't have the strength to tear it apart like tissue paper. That destruction wasn't his or his comrades' doing.
Second, for some reason, all of his comrades were lying on the ground.
Even more shocking, the boy, who had been dismissed as a mere child, was stepping on the head of one of Darek's strongest comrades, someone who wielded the second most expensive item in the group.
"Wha..."
Darek froze and stared blankly at the scene.
And then, the woman he was holding by the collar reached up and grabbed his gauntlet with her hand.
"What the—?! AAAARGH!!"
Confusion only lasted a moment.
The gauntlet began to heat up, glowing red-hot, forcing Darek to release her and collapse to the ground, writhing in pain.
'It's... it's melting...!'
The gauntlet was crushed and burning, its molten remains seeping into his right hand. Darek had no idea that this was caused by an unimaginably intense heat beyond anything he could comprehend.
The intense heat that had melted the gauntlet left Darek's right hand completely mangled, and the excruciating pain was all that consumed his mind.
"Ugh, my raincoat got dirty," muttered the red-haired woman, Panallet, with annoyance. She dusted off her clothes, then ripped off her now-soiled raincoat and tossed it aside.
With casual disdain, she silenced Darek, who was still writhing on the ground and screaming, by kicking him in the head.
"How did you do that?"
Panallet looked at Darek's gauntlet with a curious, almost satisfied expression.
Even for her, manipulating fire magic to that degree was beyond her capabilities.
To melt a gauntlet made not from simple steel but from a specially alloyed material was incredible.
The result was entirely due to Baek Yu-Seol's instructions.
'Listen carefully. In a little while, you'll heat the ring finger area of that gauntlet with flame magic.'
'What happens then?'
'It'll be... quite amusing.'
Following his advice, Panallet had only used a small amount of Class 2 flame magic on the ring finger portion of the gauntlet.
And yet, the gauntlet had completely melted.
"That gauntlet's defective."
"Defective?"
"Yes. There's a core device embedded in the finger joints that emits energy. For some reason, when heat is applied to the ring finger area, it overstimulates the internal core, causing it to self-heat to several hundred degrees in an instant. I heard the entire batch was deemed useless and discarded... Guess these mercenaries got their hands on one."
Baek Yu-Seol nonchalantly kicked Darek's mangled right hand, dislodging the gauntlet. Picking it up, he rolled it around in his hands and inspected it.
"Hmm... The code number matches the one from that discontinued batch… Looks like the dark mages stole it. Then, realizing it was defective, they probably sold it off to these mercenaries."
"I-Is that so?"
"Yes. Which means if we interrogate these mercenaries, we might uncover an organized group of intelligent dark magicians. We'll need to detain them later."
"Why later?"
"Because we still have some use for them right now."
"I see… But why did you wait for them to attack us?"
It was true. Baek Yu-Seol had deliberately stayed silent, even though he had realized their plan. He could have stopped them before they launched their ambush.
He replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because this way, I can beat them up in self-defense, right?"
"Oh... I guess that's true..."
"Also, there were some things I wanted to ask them. Syclen?"
Syclen pulled back her hood and approached the fallen mercenaries. Her face was beautiful, but her expression was icy cold, and the mercenaries turned pale with fear.
"Mercenaries, answer my questions within three seconds. If not..."
Crack!
"Aaaaah!!!"
"One of your fingers will break."
Even before asking a single question, Syclen demonstrated her method by breaking a finger, making Panallet visibly uncomfortable with her cruel example.
"Understood?"
Crack!
"Aaaaah!! Please, just ask me anything! Please!!!"
Crack!
"Aaaaargh!!"
Eventually, without a single question being asked, the mercenary, whose ten fingers were all bent backward, passed out.
Baek Yu-Seol crossed his arms and silently gave Syclen a look that said, "What are you even doing?"
Syclen responded with a slight smile. Her smile was breathtakingly beautiful, but what she said next was utterly beyond imagination.
"It's been a while since I've broken fingers... It feels pretty satisfying. Oh, you know that feeling, right? Like when you pop bubble wrap that comes with a delivery."
After saying that, Syclen crawled over to another mercenary nearby. This one couldn't escape because Baek Yu-Seol's sword had pierced through his thigh.
The helpless mercenary could only tremble in terror as Syclen, with her slender hand, grabbed him.
"P-please..."
Crack!
"Aaaaargh!!"
"Let me just break five fingers, and then I'll ask you something."
Crack, crack, crack!
That day, rumors spread throughout Galeo County of ghostly screams echoing somewhere in the region. It was said that even fewer travelers dared to visit after that.
***
The simple yet effective method of finger-breaking seemed to work wonders on the street mercenaries.
Thanks to this, Baek Yu-Seol learned a few key details.
"So, Scarlet is trapped in another dimension?"
"Yes. To trace that, even a witch hunter needs specific materials. Do you know where the dark mages' Persona Gate technique originated?"
"Not sure..."
"It's said there used to be a religion called the Divine Moon Church, which served the Twelve Divine Moons. Their doctrines were brutal, and their Fawn Prevernal Moon magic was so overwhelmingly powerful and uncontrollable that they were banished on a global scale. They've mostly disappeared now, but they're not entirely gone."
"A church serving Fawn Prevernal Moon..."
While Divine Moon Churches were still relatively common in the world today, it wasn't impossible for one dedicated to Fawn Prevernal Moon to exist.
'I think I heard about it a few times in the game…'
"Anyway, we're going to find the Gray Divine Moon Church that's hiding around here."
The mercenaries knew its location. To be precise, they didn't know about the Chruch itself, but once its characteristics were described to them, they confirmed it seemed to match something they'd heard of. They spilled every scrap of information they had, whether useful or not, and even added their own wild speculations, spinning it into a full-blown story.
Having broken all the mercenaries' fingers, Syclen stood up with a bright, cheerful smile, looking utterly refreshed.
"All done breaking fingers, so let's head out. Ah, I must say, breaking fingers after so long… it's oddly addictive."
"Y-yes..."
"Uh-huh..."
Baek Yu-Seol and Panallet, clearly unnerved, subtly moved their hands behind their backs. When Syclen caught their gaze and tilted her head, they hastily shook their heads.
"Ahaha, don't worry. I only break the fingers of bad people."
"R-right, of course."
"Yep. I break their fingers so they can't do bad things anymore. My magic lingers in the bones, so they won't even be able to hold chopsticks properly later. Ah, what a shame about that mercenary, Darek. Since one of his hands melted, I only had five fingers left to break..."
"S-should we have left him alone?"
"No, it's fine. Because..."
At the edge of the forest, the scenery suddenly opened up, revealing a massive temple.
The entire structure, built of gray stone, loomed in the pouring rain, exuding an ominous and oppressive atmosphere.
"There, looks like there are plenty more fingers to break."
With a bright, almost refreshing smile, as if she were commenting on fruit juice, Syclen said this and strode forward confidently.
Rumble, flash!
As thunder roared, Baek Yu-Seol and Panallet exchanged uneasy glances behind her.
"You go first..."
"No, you first..."
For some reason, following Syclen suddenly felt terrifying.